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Juvenile Iberian green woodpecker eating ants. Myrmecophagy is found in several land-dwelling vertebrate taxa, including reptiles and amphibians (horned lizards and blind snakes, narrow-mouthed toads of the family Microhylidae and poison frogs of the Dendrobatidae), a number of New World bird species (Antbirds, Antthrushes, Antpittas, flicker of genus Colaptes), and multiple mammalian groups ...
A black drongo in a typical anting posture. Anting is a maintenance behavior during which birds rub insects, usually ants, on their feathers and skin.The bird may pick up the insects in its bill and rub them on the body (active anting), or the bird may lie in an area of high density of the insects and perform dust bathing-like movements (passive anting).
Myrmecophobia (/ ˌ m ɜːr m ɪ k oʊ ˈ f oʊ b i ə /) is the inexplicable fear or hatred for ants. [1] It is a type of specific phobia.It is common for those who suffer from myrmecophobia to also have a wider fear of insects in general, as well as spiders (see Arachnophobia).
Fire ants also sting humans, Frye says, which can cause small pus-filled bumps on the skin, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Other symptoms: Ant bites are typically painful and itchy.
During anting, birds rub insects on their feathers, usually ants, which secrete liquids containing chemicals such as formic acid. These can act as an insecticide, miticide, fungicide, bactericide, or to make the insects edible by removing the distasteful acid. It possibly also supplements the bird's own preen oil. Although it has been suggested ...
The word myrmecology was coined by William Morton Wheeler (1865–1937), although human interest in the life of ants goes back to ancient times. The earliest scientific thinking based on observation of ant life was that of Auguste Forel (1848–1931), a Swiss psychologist who initially was interested in ideas of instinct, learning, and society.
Top: An ant in Mozambique Bottom: An ant-mimicking spider, Myrmarachne Ant mimicry or myrmecomorphy is mimicry of ants by other organisms; it has evolved over 70 times. Ants are abundant all over the world, and potential predators that rely on vision to identify their prey, such as birds and wasps, normally avoid them, because they are either unpalatable or aggressive.
Birds that follow ants eat many prey insects and thus decrease the foraging success of ants. [198] Birds indulge in a peculiar behaviour called anting that, as yet, is not fully understood. Here birds rest on ant nests, or pick and drop ants onto their wings and feathers; this may be a means to remove ectoparasites from the birds.